Today was a very busy day with some extra special learning.

Our children who are leaving to go to school in September had a visit from Barry Thacker, our chair of governors, who came to nursery with his friend Flat Stan (a special model) and a giant telephone, to help us to learn about First Aid and what to do in an emergency.

The children, who accessed the session in small groups, made some fantastic links with our ‘First Aid’ at nursery. They told Barry about cold compresses, Mr Bump, and how the staff at nursery deliver first aid if they had an accident.

Barry talked to the children about what to do in an emergency and we all practiced calling for help in our very loud voices so that grown ups nearby would be able to hear us and give us help.

Barry also used his giant phone to teach the children how to dial 999 to get help from the emergency services if somebody had had an accident.

We reminded the children that this can be done from any phone, is free and that if there was an emergency, the person answering the phone would help them and tell them what to do.

To reinforce the importance of making an emergency call, Barry told us a true story about a little boy who was only 4 years old. The boy found his Mummy unconscious and saved her by phoning for an ambulance.

The children knew lots already about their bodies and were able to tell Barry all their different body parts as well as some parts that were inside their bodies them like the heart, lungs and stomach.

Flat Stan helped us to understand about when things can go wrong with our body or how your or someone elses body might get hurt in an accident. He then helped us to learn about what to do if we saw someone like a friend at nursery or one of our grown ups who was hurt and needed help.

The children were really good at remembering that first they should shout for help.

Flat Stan then helped us to learn some simple techniques that could help someone if they’d had an accident or even save their lives.

We learnt about pinching the end of the nose for a nose bleed, plasters and bandages for cuts and scrapes, cold compresses (or anything cold, like a wet paper towel) to help after bumps and holding burns under cold running water. We even learnt what to do if someone was choking by giving them back slaps or tummy thrusts to help to get the trapped food out.

The last bit of our learning was really important. Flat Stan and Barry showed the children what to do if somebody was unconscious and had stopped breathing. Barry showed us how to check by feeling for their breath and we practiced feeling for our own breath so that we knew what it felt like. Barry then demonstrated on Flat Stan, how to give cardiac massage (where you use your hands on someone’s chest to help their heart to pump blood around the body) The children were fantastic and all had a practice using the Flat Stan model to show that they understood what to do.

The children were absolutely brilliant and did so much fantastic learning about First Aid. We reminded them about how important the learning was as it could help people and maybe even save somebody’s life one day. They remembered brilliantly and could tell Barry lots of things that they had found out from the session. As we left and the children said goodbye to Barry and Stan, one of them excitedly rushed over to another staff member and said “we’ve been learning to save lives!”

Days such as today are a really important part of our ongoing curriculum about safety and also provide great opportunities for learning in PSED (Personal, social and emotional development) and physical development. They encourage the children to think for themselves and solve problems and also are a great way to get the children taking, thus supporting their communication and language. So an all round positive learning experience.

Many thanks to Barry Thacker for his fabulous sessions today which were so important and also lots of fun.

For more information on today’s First Aid Teaching with Flat Stan please follow the link below.